The Black Panther

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    The Black Panther Party was a radical, revolutionary political group formed in October 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The Black Panther symbol had been used previously by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization which fought for black voting rights in Alabama.

     

    The Party's founders were motivated by a number of factors: disillusionment with the non-violent direct action of the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; the assassination of Malcolm X in February 1965; and the riots in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles in August 1965. These riots are considered to have been a turning point in Black American politics. They lasted six days, during which thirty-four people were killed and more than a thousand people injured. The immediate cause of the riots was the mishandled arrest of a black motorist but an official investigation revealed the deeper causes to be poverty, inequality and racial discrimination.

     

    Each edition of the Black Panther included the Ten Point Platform and Program, the Party's manifesto which set out its demands for the end of the oppression of black people in America.

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